


The Way You Laughed

by aliitvodeson



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: M/M, Old Age, Songfic, visiting grave
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-26
Updated: 2013-05-26
Packaged: 2017-12-13 01:23:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 862
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/818309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aliitvodeson/pseuds/aliitvodeson
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Don’t be an idiot, I’m not actually talking to you. I’m talking to this silly microphone. I wanted to leave you something, something that would mean something after I’m gone. Sentiment, you know. People do silly things when they’re about to die."</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Way You Laughed

His hands fumbled at the cab door. He couldn’t manage the new fangled handles. His fingers were stiff, his hands laced with 92 years of scars.  
“Where to sir?”  
He gives the address of the cemetery. It hasn’t changed from the first time. Sherlock said it would be a waste of money to bury him anywhere else, since they already owned the plot. “Don’t be foolish John. You won’t even have to buy me a new marker.” “Of course we bloody have to buy you a new marker. Don’t be an idiot.” Even on his deathbed, Sherlock had still been able to get a rise out of John.  
Now, he just smiles at the memory.  
“Could you do me a favour?”  
The cabbie looks over his shoulder at John. “Depends on what you need.”  
“Could you put on the radio? Station 97.3 please.”  
“Expecting a song?” The cabbie makes the left turn onto the highway, and then adjusted the radio dial.  
“Something like that.”  
He’s timed it perfectly. When the station came into focus, the London Symphony was in the last measure of Beethoven's 5th.  
“Well, wasn’t that something? Give up for those musicians! They really know how to play the classics!”  
“Speaking of classics, we have a very special request for our next song. Here at Classic 97, anniversaries are very important. Isn’t that right Katie?”  
“Indeed it is Jay. It’s certainly one of the most touching stories I’ve heard. Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Sherlock Holmes has come back from the dead to present a special anniversary gift to his husband!”  
John gives a little laugh. Katie doesn’t know that Sherlock really had come back from the dead once.  
“John.”  
And though Sherlock’s voice was pre-recorded, though it came out slightly blurry from the cab’s speakers, though he’s heard the message eight times since he buried his husband early one May, though the man himself had been dead for eight years, John jumped.  
“Don’t be an idiot, I’m not actually talking to you. I’m talking to this silly microphone. I wanted to leave you something, something that would mean something after I’m gone. Sentiment, you know. People do silly things when they’re about to die. Silly things like buy a radio station just to leave a message to their husband. I guess I am being sentimental after all. How Mycroft would laugh. You’re laughing now no doubt.” John was, though the laughter was tempered by tears. “I never understood the term ‘our song’. We do not own the song, how can it be ours? Ordinary people have such mundane ideas. I suppose it gives them the idea that they alone possess the ability to listen to the music in a certain way. Rubbish really. All ordinary boredom aside, enjoy the music John. And try not to be an idiot. Anymore than usual, that is.”  
And then the music starts and John gets carried away by the memories.  
At first it had been a joke of Sherlock’s. Back at Angelo’s for the first time since Sherlock’s suicide, Angelo had insisted on playing a special song for them. “Special song for the special date. What’s your song?”  
“Our song?” John was about to launch into another one of his rants about how they most certainly were not a couple when Sherlock grabbed his hand. John shut up instantly.  
“Our song.” Sherlock just repeated John’s words, but he said them so differently. Firmly, with that cool confidence and thrust forward with his chin that indicted an order. “Our song, please Angelo.”  
“Of course Mr. Holmes. Anything for you. And your date.”  
And when the soft Italian music had been replaced by the keen country tones of Taylor Swift, it had sent John into a spasm of laughter. Sherlock had quickly followed him into hysteria. It was enough to break the awkwardness that had hung between them since Sherlock’s return.  
Angelo had played the song every time they’d come in after that. Somehow Mrs. Hudson had found out and soon Taylor Swift was echoing through their flat block. Even Molly managed to have the song playing in the hospital moratory every time they stopped by.  
And when Sherlock had proposed (over a murder victim of course), the song was somehow coming out of the speakers inside the New Scotland Yard building.  
“Our song is the way you laughed, first date when I didn’t kiss him and I should have.”  
Dancing in Sherlock’s arms, their heads pressed against each other’s shoulders, the golden bands on their hands still shy and new.  
“And when I got home, ‘fore I said amen.”  
Fixing up the Holmes country mansion with Sherlock, turning it into a foster home for runaway teens, scrapping mildew off the ceiling while Sherlock painted the hallway a ridiculous shade of orange.  
“Asking God if he could play it again.”  
Holding his hand as the doctors took their readings, smiling when Sherlock insisted that John not go and sell the house “like the last time I died.”  
“I was riding shotgun with my hair undone, in the front seat of his car. Got a pen and an old napkin and I wrote down our song.”

**Author's Note:**

> So I was talking with a friend over what song would be Johnlock's. I loved the thought of them having a very corny, overused song. This story was born!


End file.
